12.5.6

"—T-t…"

The pain of his face slamming against the ground woke Subaru.

Groaning from his chin hitting the cool floor, Subaru shook his head. Realizing that he had the sensation of his hand touching his bumped chin, he was certain of his own physical existence. —Nothing was out of place.

"T-tomb. Inside the…"

Murmuring with a trembling voice, his gaze wandered as he confirmed his own location. Suddenly, he was there in the room of the Trial he had surely been in until just before losing consciousness, having in no way leaped beyond it in either time or space.

Emilia wasn't there, either. He hadn't Returned by Death. He was there right after his wish had come.

"But that was…no daydream or anything close…"

Putting a hand to his mouth, Subaru felt every inner organ spasm at once at the scene burned into the core of his mind.

It was an unanticipated scene, an impossible world, a nonexistent stage that he had surely left behind—that was unmistakably the "Scene After Subaru's Death."

"U…bu—"

The instant his comprehension redoubled, his trembling intestines reached their limit, and the contents of Subaru's stomach were expelled.

A supper of which he had only a distant memory of eating spewed onto the floor along with his stomach fluids. It was no great amount. Even so, wringing his stomach repeatedly made him feel a small easing of his nausea.

"Haah, haah… Th-this is…"

After vomiting repeatedly, Subaru moaned from the burning pain of stomach fluids in his throat as he sank into thought.

What the heck had happened? Had Subaru, seeking an invitation to the castle of dreams, fallen into some sort of aberrant situation? Given the place, if he had to put his finger on a possibility, the only one that came to mind was—

"Wait, don't tell me that was the Trial just now…? Not the one of the past but the second one…?!"

This was the room of the Trial inside the tomb of the Witch—so having cleared the first gate, it was natural for there to be a second. It was only natural, but to Subaru, this natural thing was exceedingly unexpected.

Of course, that went for not just the Trial starting; the most frightening thing of all was the Trial's contents.

—If what he'd seen earlier was the second Trial, to Subaru, it was the worst development possible.

When it came to Hell, Subaru had seen it repeatedly. He was well aware of the fact.

And to grasp an optimal future, he'd resigned himself to seeing that Hell as many times as it took.

—But how could he maintain his determination after learning of something that went beyond Hell, something more terrifying than Hell itself?

"—Behold the unknowable present."

"Wha—?!"

Subaru could practically feel his blood freezing as his body trembled. Someone's whisper had suddenly grazed his eardrums.

Raising a cry at that fact, his body stiffened and that instant—the loss of consciousness came once more.

He thrust out his arms, but they could not hold on to anything. Falling shoulder-first onto the floor, he could not force his eyelids open. His consciousness proceeded to rapidly fall into the abyss and vanish.

—So that the Trial and the world beyond Hell might chastise Subaru Natsuki.